Archive for October 2003

Remember all those amazing polls that showed that many Americans had no idea about the facts of 9/11 and Iraq? It turns out that people who watch Fox News were (surprise!) moreinclined to believe those things. But John Ray has discovered why this is: it turns out that all these people were actually right!

As ChuDogg points out, however, the supposedly ?false? beliefs are true! Fox viewers have got it right!

33% of Fox News viewers said that the US had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since the war finished. Chudogg says that they were correct, because of the Kay report. The justification here is those vials of toxins they found in some guy’s fridge, which by themselves aren’t remotely a WMD. The Kay report turned up plenty of evidence that the Baath regime had a weapons PROGRAM, which is fine for arguing in support of the Iraq invasion, but not for this argument.

All of which is moot anyway, because those polls? Conducted June to September. The Kay report? Released October 2nd. Enough said.

Chudogg’s defence of the proposition that Hussein and Al-Qaeda were best buddies is a bit limp. Providing evidence of a few meetings between the two outfits doesn’t demonstrate anything. When this poll data is combined with the poll conducted earlier, that showed that 50% of Americans believed there was at least one Iraqi amongst the 9/11 hijackers, it is obvious that respondents had a rather more direct connection in mind. The third poll question, that “People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it” is so obviously wrong that he simply spits out a piece of venomous rhetoric rather than attempt to defend it.

This blog sure has taken a turn to the Left since Yobbo has been away. He won’t be happy when he gets back to find Blair has de-linked us and I’m linking entirely to Chomsky articles and Indymedia rants. I’ll do my best to make my next rant anti-Left.

I posted a few days ago about the tendency of right wing blogs to accuse lefties of hypocrisy because of selective protesting. In that article I quoted Bob Brown saying he was intending to protest against Hu (in the end, of course, he was barred from parliament). That hasnt stopped Steve Edwards, Alan Anderson and probably others having a go at the Left for the lack of protests against Hu. If you protest against the leader of a democratic nation allied with Australia, but not against human rights violations by some corrupt regime in Sierra Leone, you must be a hypocrite. It makes perfect sense!

As was made clear in the comments thread in my original post, if the Left had engaged in widespread protests against Hu, it would have been regarded as useless or counterproductive by the Right.

The International Red Cross is considering leaving Baghdad after being targeted by a bomb yesterday.

The neutral Swiss-run agency said it would decide within days whether to reduce its presence in the country following the suicide car bombing that killed two Iraqi Red Cross employees and as many as 10 other people outside the compound.

The question they need to be asking themselves is, of course: Why do they hate us?

OK folks, Yobbo is away but he cryptically did not mention where on earth we went, which I, for one, thought was very odd. Therefore we have no option left but to guess where he went.

Comment on your thoughts as to where Yobbo has gone, who he’s gone with, or what on earth he’s up to. Bonus points are available if anyone offers up grainy, doctored photos of Yobbo on any French beaches.

Hu Jintao wasn’t stuffing around today when he addressed parliament. With good reason, it seems. Buried in the Hansard comes this latest shot in the history wars:

Back in the 1420’s the expeditionary fleets of China’s Ming dynasty reached Australian shores. For centuries, the Chinese sailed across vast seas and settled down in what was called the “Southern Land”, or today’s Australia.

I’m not sure how many centuries we are talking here. I was under the impression that it was about 1 and a half, but Hu seems to think it’s a fair bit longer than that.

Certainly gives a new meaning to “making history”. The Chinese Communist Party have obviously been taking in more than the safe yearly level of Lyndall Ryan lectures.

The other question that keeps nagging me is: What happened to all those ancient Chinese sailors? All the experts seem to agree that there were only Aborigines here when Cook landed.

Anyone planning on launching a class action suit against McDonalds in the near future would be well served by using Matt the House Husband as a witness:

Any one who has a dog knows that they will eat just about anything. They are constantly scrounging for things to eat and always hanging around the kids waiting for them to drop some morsel of food on the floor. One thing they will not eat though is a pickle from McDonalds. They will however happily lick their own ass for hours on end.